The Morphing MOB

Blogging is a pretty amorphous thing and people are constantly getting in and out of the game. In the past few weeks, a number of changes have been afoot among some of the better bloggers in the MOB.

It began with the announcement that the redoubtable Leo Pusateri was putting Psycmeister's Ice Palace in the deep freeze. Leo is a great guy and one of the best bloggers around, but his life has been getting more complicated and something had to give. That meant blogging. As Leo explains it:

As I've often said, a job worth doing, is worth doing right. Although I've enjoyed blogging, the time required to not only update a blog daily, but to really put thought into each post, was time that I was lacking. I was paying a little attention to each facet of my life, but nowhere near the attention each facet deserved; that included blogging.

The good news is that while Leo has shelved his operation, he has joined Chief and the rest of the Freedom Dogs and is contributing to that ever-worthy outpost, while continuing his ongoing efforts to oust John Murtha. Still, less Leo means that the MOB is lessened.

Meanwhile, our good friend John "Night Writer" Stewart is "re-purposing" his blog. What does that mean? Well, let the man explain:

Certain thoughts have been in the back of my mind for some time, and I let them come to the forefront while I was on vacation the last couple of weeks, and I've made a decision. Blogging has been a great exercise ... almost like calisthenics. The thing with calisthenics is that you can develop your muscles but at some point you're going to want to do something with them. As the Anthony Trollope quote in my header this week says, "Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write." I now know I can put two to three hours a day into writing, because I've been doing this and now...I need to break from the familiar and comfortable and see what else I can write.

As when I started this blog, I have no idea what I'm going to write about, or what form it will take. I think I'd like to try a novel, but I don't have a vision for a story yet. It may be short stories at first, as the next step in my process. What I do know is that I'm going to take those two to three hours a night to work it out, and that means not writing as often here.

Again, that does not mean that the Night Writer is leaving the fray. He will still post from time to time and his family/partners in crime (Mall Diva, Tiger Lily, the Reverend Mother and presumably Uncle Ben) will still be offering their bon mots over at his place. This much I know -- whatever the Night Writer decides to do, it will be damned good.

But there's more: we also learn that the invaluable Marty Andrade is pulling the reins back a bit:

It’s not that I’m not writing anything, just not on the blog.

Presently I am working on two Bleacher Report columns and an end of season MLB Awards ballot that all the community leaders in the MLB section of the Bleacher Report were given. Plus, the 2nd edition of the Burger Tour (with 3 new joints and 2 new essays) is getting worked on.

However, this week’s lack of posts might be indicative of things to come.

On Monday I start my MBA program. There won’t be any fooling around. The MBA program becomes my #1 priority. This blog gets pushed down the priority list.

This is not to say I’ll be quitting the blog. Hardly. But it might become one of those annoying one-post-a-week-on-something-everyone-else-has-already-talked-about blogs. I also might start liveblogging more. It’s easy and well…pointless. But fun.

Marty's not exactly slowing down, it would seem. But even if his blog is one post a week, it will be worth your time.

The MOB is a pretty loose amalgam of people and the intersection of self-expression and life can be the scene of some major pileups. There have been times where I've wondered if I spend too much time on this particular avocation. For now it's full speed ahead around here. But for my own selfish reasons, I hope that Leo, John and Marty keep writing. All of them are good friends of this feature and have all been quite generous with their support. And because they may be less prominent players in the MOB in the future, it means that the rest of us have to do more.

Cross-posted at True North